Son of my Father
by Scandalacious Intentions
Summary: Before Lupin returns to his wife and unborn child, he has a great deal of thinking to do. Returning to his childhood home, he realises he's more like his father than he'd first thought. "You did need him, Remus. That's why he stayed. He needed you too. You grew up to be his best friend. Do you really want to miss that?"


**Disclaimer: Not mine.**

**A/N: You could consider this the Prequel to "Home". You don't need to have read it. It's your standard Lupin goes back to Tonks one-shot. "Home" was about the **_**what**_**. This one is about the **_**why**_**.**

"…_so that you maybe sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust_." - Jesus Christ.

"_Be just like your dad, lad. Follow in the same tradition._" - "Son of my Father" - Chicory Tip.

Still seething after his altercation with Harry in Grimmauld Place, Lupin was unsurprised to find himself marching through the fields of long grass that led to his childhood home. His long legs kicked at the damp blades. It was now raining so hard that the drops were bouncing off his head, causing his sandy coloured split ends to cling to his face.

By the time he reached the scarlet painted front door, he was soaking wet, gasping for breath, and sobbing. Being better brought-up than to unlock the door, even though it was that of his mother, he rapped the glass pane and peered through it, desperately hoping that it would be answered quickly.

Her steel grey hair was pulled back into a disheveled bun. Her apron was covered in flour, but he did not protest as she ushered him out of the rain and pulled him into a tight embrace, releasing him only as his body convulsed in her arms.

"Whatever's the matter?" She brushed the flour transferred from her apron off the front of his woolen jumper. "Come in and we'll have some tea. The kettle's just boiled." She frowned deeply, watching him trudge with a world-weary sigh into the kitchen.

Lupin accepted the proffered cup of sweet tea and took a seat at the kitchen table.

"Well?"

His hands shook as he took a sip. "My wife," he said at length.

His mother sat forward in her seat. "Yes?"

"I…She's…I've done something terrible."

His mother leaned back. She clutched her cup of tea and regarded her son as one might regard an axe-murderer one was particularly fond of. He could almost hear the cogs whirring in her mind.

"I'm not a fugitive," he snapped, pushing his fringe back with his left hand and nursing his mug with his right. "Though I might as well be. She's pregnant."

His mother squealed and leapt from her seat to throw her arms around him. He chose to pretend that she had not and even as he felt her arms around him, took a sip of tea.

"Please don't let's pretend this is a good thing. I've spent the last three days pretending it's a good thing. Right now, I want to be rational with the only person I can possibly be rational with so please sit down."

Mrs. Lupin blinked. She consented to taking a seat, but sat opposite him with pursed lips and a disapproving glare.

"What? _What_? Don't tell me you honestly think I should be pleased about this. Are you out of your senses? Haven't you realised what I am? Is the state of the cellar not enough proof for you?" He glared back at her. "And frankly, how dare you judge me? You have no idea what I-"

She raised her eyebrows, her black eyes taking on a menacing glint. "No, of course I don't. I only raised a child who suffered from Lycanthropy. I only single-handedly took care of him when he was going through a mental breakdown. I only had to sit with him for twelve years while he drank himself into a stupor and crossed out Sirius Black's face in all his photographs. You're right. What the hell do I know?" She scoffed. "This self-loathing-"

Lupin gawped at her. "You think I can love who I am?"

"That's what I tried to teach you to do. How do you think it makes me feel? Every time I hear you use the word 'monster', I feel like a failure. The only reason I have to feel like a failure is because I didn't protect you. I feel utterly responsible for your condition and I know that's how you'd feel about this child. Don't talk to _me_ about self-loathing, Remus." She shrugged. "So you're walking out on the child, are you?"

Lupin stared mournfully into the bottom of his mug. "He's better off without me. You don't understand."

"No. You're right. I don't." She stormed out of the room and did not return for some time. Lupin began to think that she would not come down at all. He could hear her footsteps on the creaking floorboards above the kitchen.

Twenty minutes later, she had not calmed herself, but managed to smile at him. Under her arm was tucked a faded blue shoebox. She placed it on the table in front of him. "When you were bitten, he took you to hospital and then he came back here and packed his things. Your father thought you'd be better off without him too."

Lupin frowned. "But he didn't leave."

Mrs. Lupin smiled. "Of course he didn't."

"Then why tell me?"

His mother offered him a half-smile. "Just open it."

Lupin merely looked at it for quite some time. He wasn't sure that he wanted to know what she kept inside it. It was fairly heavy and rattled when he tilted it.

It was filled with all manner of things that documented a relationship. Lupin was aware that his father had been something of a hoarder. He had been a man who kept public transport tickets and filed his receipts, but _this_…

Lupin lifted the first item in the box. It was a faded white card. Its edges were torn and bent with age. In faded black ink on the inside, his father had written, in handwriting very similar to his, the words:

_Congratulations on your Sorting. There are much worse places to be. Your mother said you were worried about what I'd say. Your mother could tell you the story better than I ever could, but in Greek myth, Icarus flew too close to the sun and melted his wings. The moral of the story is, of course, that you should never fly too close to the sun. Well, boy, that's bullshit. Who tells you how high you can fly? Build better wings, Remus. Build better wings and fly. If they melt, I'll catch you._

_You're going to learn things here that will change your life and you're going to meet people who will still be your dearest friends on your deathbed._

_I'm excited for you._

_Good luck, Icarus._

_Love, Dad._

_P.S. Your grandmother has managed to get the stains out of her carpet. You're off the hook._

He placed it on the kitchen table. "I remember that. My first Friday afternoon off. I hated him for this. James and Sirius read it over my shoulder and I was absolutely convinced that they were going to think my whole family was made up of the clinically insane."

His mother said nothing.

He pulled out a clear plastic tag bearing the stamp of South Hams Hospital.

_Baby Boy Lupin_

_March 10th 1960_

_5:17 am_

"He kept this?"

His mother nodded. "I didn't think he would. He only married me because he didn't have much choice. He loved me, of course he loved me, but I don't think he'd have married me otherwise. When I told him I was pregnant, he was absolutely furious. I was terrified that he wouldn't love you or worse, he'd resent you. We brought you home and he clipped it off straight away. I didn't even know where it had gone until he died. I was clearing out and I found this." She smiled softly. "I don't think he _was_ overly fond of you, at first. He didn't do much with you. He didn't refer to you by name - though I think that might have been because he didn't much care for it."

Lupin raised an eyebrow. "Where on earth did it come from?"

His mother bit back her smile. "Do you really want to know?"

"Well, you can't look like that and not tell me."

"There was a film that came out two or three years after I was born and it was my favourite when I was growing up." His mother shrugged. "I liked the name and you know, Lupin is 'Lupus' and I thought it would be funny." She smiled grimly. "I could never have imagined it would be ironic." She took the box from him and pulled out a sheet of paper, a blurred colour photograph clipped to the top left. "Your dad wanted to make it move, but obviously, it had to be distributed to my family and friends as well as his so moving photographs weren't an option."

The photograph was taken in their previous home, a small one-up-one-down almost shack in Bristol. The wallpaper was an unpleasant shade of brown with cerise and orange flowers emblazoned on it, pasted there by his mother. His parents sat on their faded green sofa, holding their young son in their arms.

_Hello, everyone._

_This is us with our baby boy. Remus is six weeks old now. He looks like his daddy so of course he's going to be a heartbreaker, but thank goodness, he has his mother's nose._

_I have an office job so we hope to move very soon. Emma has decided to go back to college. She's taken up ballet and hopes to pursue this. She is ridiculously good at anything she turns her hand to - even motherhood - so I don't dare doubt her._

_The last six weeks with Remus have been the best of our lives. He's incredible. He can smile now - though he tends to prefer mummy. When I said he's starting to smile, I didn't mean at me. For me, he reserves something very special. I call it the Death Grip. He catches hold of my finger and won't let go. It would be very endearing if it wouldn't incapacitate me for half a day because I can't bring myself to pull away. I think he might take it personally if I do._

_All three of us hope to see you very soon._

_Love to you all._

_John, Emma, and Remus._

Lupin swallowed softly and sucked in a breath.

"He loved you so much, Remus. He loved you enough to pack his things and leave all this behind him when he realised what he had done to you. Your father felt completely responsible for what had happened to you. He _was_. There's no point beating about the bush and I was completely frank with him. He was going to leave. I _wanted_ him to leave. We were both willing to let our guilt cloud how much you needed him. You _did_ need him, Remus. That's why he stayed. He needed you too. You grew up to be his best friend. Do you really want to miss that?" She reached into the box and pulled a small tin. "He even kept your baby teeth."

Lupin softly stroked the tiny green woolen jumper that had been neatly folded. He had been wearing it in the photograph with his parents. It looked as though it might fit a doll.

She reached for his hand across the table. "So don't think I don't respect you for having the courage to leave, and don't think I don't know why you've done it, but I really think you'll regret this." She took a deep breath in an attempt to hold back her tears. "There's not a day that goes by when I don't miss him. It's been twenty years and I still start to talk to him, I still notice how empty the bed feels, and I still cry myself to sleep. Maybe you're right. Maybe I don't know anything about it, but I still don't understand why you'd _choose _to put someone you love through that."

_So you're just going to dump her and the kid and run off with us?_

"Half-breed," she said at last. "He never told you what he said to Greyback. Well, that was it. Half-breed. I think, on the whole, it's still a somewhat tame insult. He couldn't bring himself to tell you because he couldn't bear it if you knew how reckless he had been with your safety and your health. He could have said much worse, but he chose 'Half-breed' and for a word with so small an impact, you were infected with this…this…_horrible_…this bloody disease." She wiped her tears so briskly that she appeared to be throwing them from her eyes in disdain. "He fought like a starving tiger for you. And I'm not suggesting that your wife can't fight her own battles, because I wouldn't dream of it. She looks perfectly capable of taking on a couple of starving tigers on her own. I just…I think you ought to do the same. It's one thing to run because you think you've infected a child. It's not an easy decision to make, and I don't think it's one you've made lightly, but _if_ you have, don't you think you ought to take responsibility? Don't you think he'll need you more than ever?"

_What will they do to a half-werewolf whose father's in the Order?_

He rifled through a series of photographs taken in his teens. He and his father had identical smiles. The wind whipped their hair and brought tears to the corners of their eyes - the same shape, but one set black, the other blue. They both wore red coats. He didn't over-think his relationship with his father. He was aware of Sirius' loathing for his own family, but he knew there were extenuating circumstances. He was aware of Peter's absent father, but he knew that wasn't the norm either. The only person he could compare himself with was James. James, at fourteen, loudly complained about the things his father wouldn't allow him to do, his dress-sense, his archaic turns of phrase.

Lupin couldn't remember his father being anything other than "cool". His friends described him as such and Lupin had never had any reason to doubt it. His father had been the disciplinarian, but he was soon coaxed round to an idea and rarely strict with him. They shared hobbies and a sense of humour. He'd never had any reason, or had a reason he considered to be legitimate, to disrespect his father or even dislike him.

_I think I'd be pretty ashamed of him._

"You forgave your father," his mother said softly.

"That was different. How could I _not_ love him? The disease didn't -" He stopped short, the light returning to his tired eyes.

She nodded. "Go home."


End file.
